Ju­nior Saints fall short of grand final

HEATH­COTE’S un­der 12 football team has missed out on a spot in the Bendigo Ju­nior Football League grand final, go­ing down to Kyne­ton in Sun­day’s pre­lim­i­nary final.

Beau­ti­ful con­di­tions at Lake Weeroona Oval saw the ground packed with spectators and the Saints were pumped for the show­down.

Tay­lor Maiden in the ruck had the first tap of many for the day get­ting the ball clear for the Saints mid­field to take con­trol and push for­ward.

Oliver Ayres, Jesse Bruce, Cal­lum Devine and Tanika Cook were all amongst the mad scram­ble when crum­ber Bra­dyn Fer­gu­son snapped across the face of goal to score the Saints first mi­nor.

Coura­geous play from both Blake Maiden and James Pringle, con­stantly putting their bod­ies on the line against over­sized op­po­nents soon had the ball over­turned and hurtling for­ward for the Saints, an­other mi­nor recorded be­fore Kyne­ton could wipe the sweat from their eye­brows.

De­spite the Saints com­po­sure and ef­forts to keep the ball for­ward they were un­able to cap­i­talise on the score­board.

Thomas John­son had mark of the year guar­an­teed, tak­ing out­reach­ing one han­ders and hang­ers over any op­po­nent all day.

The de­ter­mined at­tack on the ball was fe­ro­cious from Da­mon RyanMay, Nik Hans­son, Har­ri­son Fer­gu­son, Han­nah Cole­man and Matilda Ed­sall-French over­turn­ing many of the Tigers per­sis­tent push for­ward.

It was a one-goal ball game head­ing into the final quar­ter, Ryan Fos­ters chase and run­down re­lent­less all day.

The team had the crowd on their feet scream­ing for a vic­tory but it wasn’t to be, Kyne­ton se­cur­ing a late goal and the win.

Final scores: Kyne­ton 2.2 de­feated Heath­cote 0.3 (3).

Con­grat­u­la­tions to all the chil­dren on a won­der­ful sea­son, and al­though the grand final was never reached all play­ers and fam­i­lies should cel­e­brate the fan­tas­tic sports­man­ship and de­ter­mi­na­tion every­one has shown. Bet­ter luck next year.

This Sun­day the team will be get­ting to­gether for the club pre­sen­ta­tions and hon­our­ing all the play­ers in­spir­ing achieve­ments and tri­umphs for this year. Well done, Saints! (14)